Heaven
by Ai Tennshi
Summary: Ai and Conan are Shiho and Shinichi again. Shinichi is with Ran, just as Shiho knew he would be. She tried to hide her pain, but one person noticed...and reached out to her.


_Author's Note: This was one of a number of challenge fics that I did with a friend. Requirements were the word of the day on dictionary dot com, a reference to a song of your choice, and other requirements chosen differently for each story._

_Disclaimer: I own nothing recognizable from Detective Conan. I do not own My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose._

**Word:** 'habitue'

**Song: **_My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose_ by Robert Burns

**Requirements: **The quotes "The world is heaven and heaven is the world", "Love is like a leech. It sucks all good sense out of you", "Ninety-nine bottles of beer? Why would I want ninety-nine bottles of beer? What is beer, anyway?", and "My favorite place in the world? Antarctica. I loved it when we went for vacation when I was seven."

**Genre:** General

**Rating:** G

**Heaven**

Ran sat awkwardly on the couch, fidgeting. She would glance up at the woman on the couch on the other side of the coffee table, and then quickly turn her eyes away. It was a very awkward situation that she was in. Shinichi had returned a few days ago, this time for good. But she had not believed it. Just before Shinichi had 'returned', Conan had 'gone home' to live with his parents in Hawaii. Ran had often found herself suspecting it, but this was the last straw. No matter how improbable, she could not possibly turn her eyes away from the truth again. She had gone to Shinichi's house to confront him, but just as he was denying and she was accusing, a woman who looked strangely familiar had stepped into the house and told Shinichi that 'there was no harm in telling the truth now that it was all over'. Shinichi had stared at the young woman for a moment, then sighed and begun his tale.

Shinichi had explained about witnessing a blackmailing scene, paying too little attention to his other surroundings, and being knocked out from behind. About being forced to swallow a pill that should have killed him—and waking to suddenly find himself in a child's body. He explained how he had had to pursue the Organization without bringing to their attention the fact that he had not died. Eventually, he came to the part where a new girl entered the elementary school that he was attending to keep up his disguise of a child. He had paused, seeming to hesitate about something, and the young woman had picked up the story.

The reddish-brown haired young woman had been that little girl that had initially refused to speak to Ran in the group of children. She had originally been the Organization's chemist, and had been the one to invent the poison that left no trace when it worked, and shrunk the victim into a child when it failed. The name of the girl that Ran had known as Haibara Ai was Miyano Shiho.

At first, Ran had wondered why, if she was not the shy child that she had appeared to be, she had always refused to speak to her. And then she had seen the subtle glances that Shiho occasionally shot at Shinichi. Her breath had caught in her throat. She had analyzed their relationship in her mind, watching them with sharp eyes. But Shinichi did not even appear to notice Shiho's glances. For a moment, Ran thought that maybe he was just pretending; but she knew that that was not true.

Her guess had been confirmed the next day, when Shinichi once again invited her to an expensive-looking restaurant for supper and proposed. Naturally she had accepted, and for some time Shiho retreated to a corner of her mind. However, it had returned to her attention when they had announced their engagement the previous day at a large party that celebrated Shinichi's return and the end of a wide-spread, dangerous criminal organization. Shiho, antisocial as she was, had been in a dark corner, and Ran was sure that she was the only one who had seen a single tear run down her cheek; and she had only seen it because she had sought Shiho out consciously, wondering what her reaction would be. Feeling irrationally guilty that she should be happy and Shiho miserable, Ran had decided to invite the older woman over. Shiho, polite as always, had declined at first, but Ran had insisted.

So now they were in her living room, sitting in silence. The silence was thick as molasses, and Ran was beginning to wish that she had not insisted so strongly upon Shiho coming today. She knew that if she didn't speak, Shiho would probably just get up and go home, but it felt as though her brain had shut down, and she simply could not think of anything appropriate to say.

"You wanted to talk to me about Kudo-kun," Shiho suddenly said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. Ran looked up in surprise; Shiho was looking at her with sharp eyes. The tone in which she had spoken had held no question, but her eyes seemed slightly enquiring.

"Well…yes," Ran admitted with a sigh.

"You have nothing to worry about. I'm quite sure that Kudo-kun would never notice how I feel for him if the world told him so. Actually, I believe that his mother _has_ told him." Shiho spoke with a small, wry smile. "He is completely devoted to you. I assure you; you don't have to worry about him cheating on you."

"Wha-" Ran's eyes were wide. She felt her face beginning to heat up at the thought that she _had_ suspected that. "No, I don't- I mean, I did wonder at first, but I realized that he hadn't noticed, like you said…" Ran trailed off, feeling more foolish than she could remember feeling ever before. Taking a deep breath, she tried again. "I actually wanted to talk to you to see if we could…well…be friends." She felt more childish than ever—she was talking to an older woman, and using the line "_Let's be friends_"!?—but she went on nonetheless. "I've noticed how you feel for Shinichi, and I know that you probably want nothing to do with me, but I…I don't want Shinichi to stand between us."

Shiho blinked in surprise. Ran did not believe that she had seen the woman look anything other than indifferent before—even in a child's body. Then a smile began to spread across Shiho's face.

"I always did admire your courage," she said sadly, even as she smiled. "You remind me of my elder sister sometimes." Then she suddenly laughed. "Kudo-kun doesn't give you enough credit. I once told him not to underestimate your strength, and he thought I was talking about your physical strength in karate." Ran stared, shocked, and then felt a blush beginning to spread across her face. She had not thought that she would have any qualities that this calm, collected older woman would admire. It was rather flattering. "I'm sorry for distancing myself from you on account of Kudo-kun's feelings for you," she went on after a slight pause. "It was a cowardly thing to do, I know, but I've found myself acting quite irrationally in these past months when it came to Kudo-kun."

"I know," Ran said, finding herself smiling. "I've come to feel that love is like a leech. It sucks all good sense out of you."

Shiho chuckled at this.

"That's the best simile I've ever heard concerning love," Shiho told Ran. "All that nonsense about being 'a red, red rose' tends to make me scoff."

Ran laughed.

"I stopped reading all that romantic poetry a long time ago," she said. "It's all nonsense, after all."

When Detective Mouri returned home from a _sake_ shop with the Detective Boys in tow, the conversation that floated down the stairs sounded very odd to his drunken mind.

"I haven't really been out of the country," his daughter's voice was saying. "I've only ever been to L.A. with Shinichi in our first year of high school." Who was she talking to? Why was she in the office instead of the apartment? Or was she in the apartment instead of the office? Either way, why did she have company that he did not know of?

"How did you like it?" Now Detective Mouri was even more puzzled. It was a woman's voice, but who was the woman? He didn't recognize her voice. As he thought, he stumbled into a wall, but hardly noticed as the three small Detective Boys attempted to steer him in the right direction up the stairs. They seemed to be yelling something at him, but he couldn't quite make out what they were saying. Ha, it was probably just nonsense anyway.

"I loved it—well, except for the murders. But it was so different from Japan… But what about you?" Why was she talking so much instead of making supper? Shouldn't Ran be making him a nice, warm supper by now? And where was that music coming from? Was somebody singing?

"My favorite place in the world? Antarctica. I loved it when we went there for vacation when I was seven." Antarctica? Where was that? Africa, maybe? Yes, that would make sense—he'd never known much about African countries.

"Antarctica? For vacation?" Why did Ran sound so shocked? Or maybe she was frightened. Yes, Antarctica must be in Africa; all the dangerous countries in the world could be found in Africa, after all.

"Well, not precisely." Was that laughter? She found danger funny? What strange people there were in the world… "My parents were doing research, and I went along. I loved it mostly because no members of the Organization could come along. It was one of the few times that I was free to do what I liked that I can remember."

He slammed into the door, but failed to notice. He heard hurried footsteps, and Ran opened the door, sending him back against the wall on the other side.

"Dad!" she said, horrified. "You went out drinking? Again? The doctor told you to hold back for six months!"

"Not to worry," her father slurred in obviously drunken speech. "Only a little… The music stopped."

"Music?" Ran asked, wondering exactly how drunk her father was to be delusional. Then Ayumi, who Ran had hardly noticed until then, spoke up.

"We were singing 'ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall'," she explained, looking up at Ran.

"Ninety-nine bottles of beer? Why would I want ninety-nine bottles of beer? What is beer, anyway?" Detective Mouri slurred before Ran could reply.

"I didn't know that it was possible to get that drunk," Shiho commented in an amused tone from behind Ran. "I'm amazed that he's still on his feet." And Detective Mouri promptly stumbled and would have fallen, had Ran, Ayumi, Mitsuhiko, and Genta not been supporting him.

"Food," Detective Mouri mumbled in his half-awake state as the four of them hauled him onto a couch with Shiho's help. Ran glanced at her watch.

"I'm supposed to be making dinner!" she gasped. "Would you like to stay for dinner?" she asked Shiho and the Detective Boys. "I'm late starting, so it'll just be curry, but you're welcome to stay." The Detective Boys enthusiastically agreed, as Ran had known that they would. She was hoping that Shiho would stay, despite the knowledge that Shiho would probably want to get away now that she and Ran had spoken. The tension that had dissipated over the course of their conversation returned, heavier than ever.

Shiho hesitated for a moment. Then, "I guess I'll see if I can help you in the kitchen." Ran was not sure whether that meant that she would help her cook and then leave, or that she would help her cook and stay and eat as well, but she was glad that she would stay a while longer. Though they had spoken at length about various subjects, Shinichi still stood between them as firmly as he had before they had spoken.

"I'm glad," Ran said with a smile, then turned to the Detective Boys. "You can entertain yourselves down here, and I'll call you when the food's ready, okay?"

"Okay!" the three friends chorused enthusiastically.

Ran and Shiho ascended to the apartment, but Shiho hesitated at the entrance to the kitchen.

"You should know: I've been working with chemicals for years, but I've never cooked before—as adult or child."

Ran looked at Shiho in surprise for a moment. Then she smiled.

"Then I'll teach you," she said. "It's a useful skill to have, you know."

So Shiho's first cooking lesson began. It took longer to make the curry rice than it would have if Ran had been working alone, but neither woman minded. Ran was determined to befriend the clever, reserved woman who was in love with her fiancé, and Shiho found herself warming to the open, warm young woman. More than anything, Ran reminded her of her sister, but at the same time there was something different. Shiho realized what it was when Ran covered the pot of curry to simmer after adding the roux. Unlike her elder sister, Ran did not strictly guide, but rather sought her opinion quite often. This made her feel more at home than ever before.

"I think I ought to go now," Shiho said when Ran turned off the stove. Ran looked at her, and Shiho saw that she was disappointed. She found herself smiling at the younger woman reassuringly. "I have to decide what I'm going to do with myself—after all, now that I'm an adult again, I don't think I should intrude on the Professor anymore. But…" She hesitated for a moment, but went on with it. "I'd like to come and talk with you again, if it's okay with you."

Ran smiled widely—a smile wider than any she had displayed that day.

"I'd be delighted," Ran said, and Shiho could tell that she meant it. Just as they were hanging up their aprons, the door opened and there stood Shinichi.

"Hey, Ran, I-" He suddenly stopped, staring at Shiho. "Haibara, what are you doing here?" Shiho rolled her eyes. It never ceased to bewilder her how she could ever fall in love with someone who could be as daft as he was—she had known that Ran had wanted to speak with her even before Ran had approached her the day before. But then again, love _was_ a leech.

"I was just leaving, Kudo-kun," she told him, stepping around the question. "I'll see you tomorrow or the day after," she said to Ran. After nearly a year of not saying Ran's name once, it was difficult to break the habit.

"Of course," Ran replied with a smile.

Shiho turned and walked away, ignoring Ran and Shinichi's voices as they began to speak to each other. Just before she opened the door to leave the apartment, she glanced back at the kitchen door just as Shinichi leaned down to place an adoring kiss on Ran's mouth. The sight shot a pang through her chest and she quickly looked away. Maybe it was a bad idea to agree to what could be the beginning of being a habitue of Ran's home. But as she left the apartment and walked down the stairs, she realized that while she had felt a pang as strong as it ever had been, the resentment that she had felt for Ran had decreased significantly.

Akemi had once said to her, "The world is heaven and heaven is the world". At the time, Shiho had only sighed, thinking that the world was hell. It was a cage with no opening but death. But she could not tell her elder sister this, for Akemi was concerned enough for her well being as it was; that concern had gotten her murdered, intensifying Shiho's belief that the world was hell.

But maybe that wasn't what Akemi had meant. Maybe what Akemi had meant was that the world is whatever you want it to be; if you want to see it as heaven, it can be heaven. It was easier to see the world as hell than heaven, Shiho knew. Then she thought of the decrease in her resentment of Ran. _Then again,_ she thought, _it wouldn't hurt to try._ She had been considering leaving the country, but Ayumi had once taught her that running away solved nothing.

Shiho smiled. Maybe staying would bring more pain. But she would try to make the world her heaven, despite her past; despite everything.


End file.
